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FrancesHinden, on Aug 31 2005, 03:18 PM, said:
mike777, on Aug 31 2005, 12:01 PM, said:
Quote
I don't know the full answer to this question.
However, if I look at the entry list for this year's English Trials I see that 13 teams have entered, containing
19 regular partnerships
4 non-regular partnerships (3 of them involving a sponsor)
3 pairs whose normal partnerships I personally don't know
If I look at the results from the Brighton Swiss Pairs just held, I see that of the top 10 places
7 were regular partnerships (including the winners for the second year running)
2 were pairs of experts who don't usually play with each other
1 was a pair I don't know
I'm not looking at the big teams events, because by the time you've got to the final of, say, the Gold Cup you'll be a partnership with a lot of agreements even if you didn't start out that way!
I think it possible that more fuss is made when a pickup partnership wins an event because that is considered notable. If Meckwell win the Spingold/Vanderbilt/Rosumblum that isn't considered news.
As for how many there are worldwide, I don't know. There are pairs at my club who've been playing together for 20 years, but they don't have a large number of explicit agreements.
However, if I look at the entry list for this year's English Trials I see that 13 teams have entered, containing
19 regular partnerships
4 non-regular partnerships (3 of them involving a sponsor)
3 pairs whose normal partnerships I personally don't know
If I look at the results from the Brighton Swiss Pairs just held, I see that of the top 10 places
7 were regular partnerships (including the winners for the second year running)
2 were pairs of experts who don't usually play with each other
1 was a pair I don't know
I'm not looking at the big teams events, because by the time you've got to the final of, say, the Gold Cup you'll be a partnership with a lot of agreements even if you didn't start out that way!
I think it possible that more fuss is made when a pickup partnership wins an event because that is considered notable. If Meckwell win the Spingold/Vanderbilt/Rosumblum that isn't considered news.
As for how many there are worldwide, I don't know. There are pairs at my club who've been playing together for 20 years, but they don't have a large number of explicit agreements.
thanks for response, 26 long term pairs in 2 of the UK major events seems like a very small number if we extrapolate around the world.
A guess of 500 long term pairs in top team matches and a different 500 pairs in top pair games for USA seems on the high side. A lot of the top players play more pick up style in the pair games.
A very small number?
Let me re-interpret the figures I just gave you.
At least 19/26 (over 70%) of the pairs entering the trials are regular partnerships
At least 70% of the top 10 places in the Brighton Swiss pairs are regular partnerships
If we extrapolate round the world then...
I don't know what percentage of everyone playing at Brighton was a regular partnership, because after the top 50 or so places the percentage of people I don't know starts getting quite high.
I would say from my figures that a large proportion of the top UK pairs are regular partnerships (don't tell me entering the trials doesn't make you a top pair, I know it doesn't, but I think a majority of the top pairs enter).
hmmm seems misunderstanding here.
I started out saying very small number of partnerships are 1) long term with 2) detailed agreements. My guess was 2000-5000 pairs. I am talking absolute numbers out of 25 million bridge players not percentages or percentages of pairs showing up to play the event.
I think 26 or 126 pairs is a tiny number for the huge bridge playing country of the UK. Just as the number in the usa seems very tiny.